Retailers have used video and sensing technology for decades to capture and store video footage for security to protect employees and customers. However, the use of the video footage in the retail setting have been expanded from security to monitor consumer behavior and experience that can be data mined for the benefit of the retailer. Slight improvements in efficiency or customer experience may have a large financial impact for the retailer.
For certain retailers, such as supermarkets or grocery stores, managing inventory may be a time consuming process. Typically, an employee must go around and manually check the inventory for each item on each shelf manually. Some attempts have been made to automate the process with robotic devices that replace the employee. However, robotics can be very expensive and cost-prohibitive to implement. In addition, the size of the robots may be restrictive if the isles or space within the retail establishment is limited making maneuvering of the robot difficult.